Re: Toshiba starts shipment of Super Upconversion chip samples. $50 in volume

Enjoy the built-in scaler on your A35 and save your nickels and dimes for either a stand alone Blu-ray or a HD-DVD/Blu-ray combo player.

"Do I buy that new BD player or wait for a superupconvert player?" --Stevepro

Steve,

The superupconvert chip is only just now being tried out by player manufacturers. It wouldn't be incorporated in players until some time next year. And we don't even know what it will do yet or how much better it is than Toshiba's current upconversion. (We can presume the new chip is better, or Toshiba wouldn't be pushing it so hard, but until it's evaluated by independent reviewers, I wouldn't be holding my breath.) Go with the BD player for now.

John

Actually the chip is a graphics co-processor (not a "super upconversion chip"), and will be used in computers first (graphics cards). Although it encodes and decodes MPEG-2 & MPEG-4 (like some other GPUs), there is no inherent upconversion capability built in to the chip (such as motion adaptive deinterlacing). Functions like this would have to be driven by software and likely additional specialized hardware components, since the Spurs engine is not a single purpose processor.

Toshiba has given no idication this would appear in any DVD player, but has mentioned we might someday see it in some of their high-end LCD panel TVs for unspecified video processing tasks. With MPEG-4 decoding, I wouldn't be surprised if the first player we see this co-processor in is a Blu-ray player.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20080408/tc_pcworld/144231

Ru and John,

Thank you. I agree. As soon as I get my daughter's wedding out of the way in May, I'm buying the Panasonic BD30. I've waited long enough. Steve

If these chips are anywhere near as good as they are being hyped and can be on $100 DVD players I'll get one to make the DVD's look better.

I wonder if these chips will provide better looking upconversion than the Toshiba HD XA2's.

I love my XA2........

There are amazing things that can be derived from an effective DSP (Digital Signal Processing) Engine.

This might prove quite interesting if they combine the earlier 'SuperBit' technology concept, feed it to a Digital Processing Engine that is on the cutting edge of today's technology, plus add in Micro$oft's HDi Online interactivity.

I can only hope that the newer generation of DVD2 players can still employ playback of the HD DVD format.

If the studios realize that Blu Ray also has it's limitations(BD+ Cracked by SlySoft)(Limited Blu Ray Fabrication Lines), and there is a similar quality, yet cheaper path into the consumers homes, that might far best 480i SD DVD....

I still think there is a serious purpose for a 720p HDM format(DVD2, or S-DVD) to upgrade to, then to convince the masses from there that 1080p is the next step up in HDM.

The typical consumer will likely adopt cheaper and gradual 'baby steps' towards 1080p HD.

The entry price point of HD DVD and Blu-Ray was a bar that was set too high for the Wal-Mart consumer to begin with.

Only a few years back, the concept of 480p (progressive) was all of the rage, but almost no one owned a TV with a component input that could display it.

Now the 1080p HDMI 'Upscaler' players are all the rage, but 720p is the typical maximum resolution of todays new HDTV sets.

Not typical of the average consumer, but only the likely choice of the 'High End' HDTV enthusiasts on this board, the ' Full 1080p' TV set is very uncommon, being typically HDTV sets that only 1 year ago were retailing at over $3000.

An interim standard might likely destroy Blu Ray and HD DVD together (OK, HD DVD is already Dead ), because it is not consumer friendly from a point of price, or it's capabilities.

Probably more than 90% of the 'Consumers' out there DON'T understand what an HDMI cable is, and yet will pay $100 for one, where we here on DVDTOWN.com already know that the $5 one works as well as the $100+ one.

I would really like to see what this new Super UpConversion technology is capable of, before I spend any money on it, but if it improves DVD closer to 720p, and is still half the price of the cheapest Blu Ray player, I'll likely find a third HDM player amongst my P$3 and Toshiba HD-A35.

Crap, I think I might run out of HDMI ports on my 1080p HDTV after all

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[Post edited by VideoCipher on Apr 8, 2008]

VideoCipher, why not petition the studios to release all their movies (for you - not me!) in 720p on single layer 25GB Blu-ray disks? That way you get your "in between" format, and maintain compatibility with current Blu-ray playback devices. This will save you from having to need yet another HDMI port!

Ok so my bitching and moaning, which some people said that I was doing, was on point. When this SUPER UPCONVERT BS came out a few weeks ago, I had voiced my opinion on this. And then someone basically said, " oh stop your bitching, Toshiba is planning a firmware update for ALL of the HD DVD supporters."

Well looks like I was correct, and my past comment about Toshiba milking us was ON POINT. Bottom line, they had planned this SUPER UPCONVERT way before the DEATH of HD DVD, and that in my books is called Theft By Deception!

sigh another attempt to confuse the market.
hddvd 2.